Independent from what? Dumb voters, of course. On this week's potentially transformative Supreme Court case, and the revival of Woodrow Wilson's vision
Not sure how but the last paragraph got chopped off in the email version of this document. My apologies. It reads:
"Trump is going to win this skirmish, but the larger war between “expert” administration and democracy awaits, with high potential to fracture the post-WWII order. These two ideas have lived in tension for a long time, and appear no longer to coexist peacefully. To be continued."
Your article was long and, typically, thoughtful and well worth reading in its entirety.
"Trump is going to win this skirmish, but the larger war between “expert” administration and democracy awaits, with high potential to fracture the post-WWII order. These two ideas have lived in tension for a long time, and appear no longer to coexist peacefully. To be continued."
Bureaucracy aka the Un-DOGE-ables. Their legacy lives on in the form of debt. "In FY 2024, interest payments ($882 billion) were greater than national defense outlays ($874 billion) for the first time." But undeterred, Congress just authorized $900 billion for defense, including higher pay for troops waiting for when they're needed for the next intervention for friends in the Middle East.
"Trump will be the justification for the shielding of governance from voters."
Executive agencies and the administrative state already shield governance from voters, whether run by commissions or single agency heads. They do that by drafting rules (legislating), enforcing them (executive) and adjudicating violations of the rule (judicial). They assume powers of two branches (legislative and judicial) that they don't have and so they cut out legislative accountability and an independent judiciary.
The administrative state is, and always has been, a constitutional abomination that insulates everyone from accountability and directly undermines our democratic republic. Make Congress write laws - they are accountable to voters. The President enforce them - he is accountable to voters. And the Judiciary adjudicate as Congress, through impeachment, and the President (and Senate), through appointments, can be held accountable. Then voters can hold our branches accountable.
Disagree. Government by Mamdani types is where we are headed. No billionaires or tech bros stopped him and these types of politicians: young, energetic, savvy, presentable and tech and media savvy (remember Barack O'Bama) will get greater exposure and votes as the malaise of the unemployed and underemployed spreads, which is inevitable.
Mamdani didn't come out of nowhere. Neither did AOC. The radical left still needs the support of the party establishment, the permanent government, and the media to win. Those institutions aren't comfortable getting into bed with socialists. Besides, the current adminisration has been rapidly eroding their grip on power. Nothing is "inevitable".
That ship sailed when he was elected for a second term. Trump is going to break the back of the DC bureaucracy, and make accountability to voters a thing again. Or not. At the very least, we should get a smarter group of oligarchs.
As I mentioned, I think that part of the specific template came from Elon Musk and his Saskatchewan grandfather's influence. Technocracy Inc. -- where politics and technology mixed back in the 1930s-40s.
"The Technocrats viewed elected politicians as incompetent. They advocated replacing them with experts in science and engineering, who would “objectively” manage resources for the benefit of society."
Two issues with Technocracy. One -- Trump is an elected official. Who else could sign the orders to start these initiatives?
Two -- Technocracy fails to take human nature into account. It reminds me of the sinister Yuval Noah Harari (who is actually a medieval and military historian....not an Evolutionary Biologist or Psychologist as a listener might think). Harari seems to have no notion of authentic humanity. Which is bad news. And these types are incredibly naive in believing that the human beings running these shows are going to be "objective" simply because they have a few skills in science and engineering.
Remember what happened with that sort during COVID-mania?
I remember a few Technocracy signs back in the 60s, had a yin-yang symbol in it. I don’t know how much activity it represented by then, I was just a kid. People were starting to catch on that a lot of obsession with technology was just scientism, just another form of religion.
True enough, Dave. Although Trump seems to have taken the Technocratic ideas of Elon Musk's Saskatchewan grandfather rather seriously. I suspect that Musk's grandfather had the same streak of Autism that Musk has....and so the obsession with technology rather than with human empathy.
When these influences hit a person who holds power, they might gain speed and become more worrisome.
The whole concept of experts running a society is found in the original Technocracy theory too.
Exec summary: this fits in to the broader context which is elites seeking to keep control, the story of the Trump era. It's another tactic alongside lawfare and gov't censorship of digital content.
Glutton for words version:
When you look at this Within the context of overall political philosophy, This is a subset of the overall elite versus the populace balance of power.
Since 2016 we have basically been living in a world where elites have lost power because of technology. Greater information flow direct to the people without gatekeepers via social media and the Internet Leads to less elite control.
The media loses its power to control the narrative, politicians lose their power to control the people through the narrative. New players speak directly to the people using the new media. This enables greater democracy, which sounds like a good thing but has side effects.
Elite versus the people is an axis of society that has existed in every political system, it's no different than patrician versus plebian in the Roman era. It's the same story except in the US we teach a school child version of democracy as the ideal without recognizing that there are actually some benefits to having a balance of elite power within the system. In our system that has been present through this media/narrative control I've been talking about, the influence of money on politics, and control of the political parties themselves.
All of that has been severely damaged by the advent of the Internet and social media. The parties also gave up some control willingly in the interests of "more democracy". For example, they went to open primaries and stopped gatekeeping who could even be candidates which was a level of Elite control.
Donald Trump just kept being who he is but took advantage of this change by leveraging social media and the direct megaphone. It's as simple as "More Democracy" enables demagoguery.
Many negative behaviors we end up seeing happening here and overseas results from elites who just lost power exercising remaining power to take back the control they just lost. If you can't gatekeep presidential candidates, you go after the elected president with impeachment, with scandals, trying to utilize that same power of gatekeeping who is worthy. Lawfare against political opponents is the exact same thing: elites trying to seize back power through any means they have at their disposal. In other countries the elites have retained a bit more power and for example in Germany they knockout entire parties and in Romania have succeeded in gatekeeping candidates.
So this KBJ comment and desire bureaucratic control should be seen in this overall context. Personally, I believe that we need to actually let the pendulum swing back a little bit without letting elites do all this shady stuff to take back control. Let's thoughtfully agree to the right balance of elite influence, because as Alan Ryan and many other political philosophers teach, a society actually is best structured by thoughtfully balancing those things rather than having a silly ideal like our puerile "democracy is awesome" idealism in the United States. Democracy is awesome when properly modulated, but more democracy is not always a good thing because pure democracy is crap. I would never agree to KBJ's standard of what that modulation should look like, but Centrists in both parties who come out of the elite don't all have terrible ideas. they just can't get heard today because those ideas aren't spectacular enough to gain traction on social media.
I'm praying for democracy. Matt was right to put the "experts" in quotation marks. They are nothing of the kind. Their only expertise is in using the levers of power to stay in power, at any cost.
Yes, Trump will win this skirmish. He'll get to fire people simply because he doesn't like them, or because they said something he dislikes, and you're championing that. But there is no war between expert administration and democracy. As I've said elsewhere on this thread, when Congress creates an "independent" agency (FTC, SEC, FCC, NLRB, etc.), it's doing one narrow thing: limiting the President's power to fire agency heads except for cause (e.g., neglect of duty, malfeasance). Independence does not equal sovereignty. You know this, which is why your piece is a cynical hit job on Justice Brown Jackson that denigrates both her and your readers by implying that this is all in defence of democracy.
I didn't say she was, you idiot. I said that Taibbi implied that his piece was in defence of democracy. And I'm not a "democrat party," whatever that's supposed to mean. Jfc. Why is it that 90% of Taibbi's readers have to be treated like fucking kindergartners?
While true that someone with the temperament of Trump can use this power “less judiciously than ideal”, the problem with limiting such firings to “cause”, is that cause is too subjective and we go right back to the framing of expert v layman.
The problem, which I think should be more apparent than ever, is that we mistake “expertise” for knowing some objective realty in a subject. It’s just not the case. Look no further than education experts steering teachers away from phonics when teaching reading. It’s has had disastrous effects, which apparently, only laymen could see coming from a mile away. lol
Even in hard(er) sciences, there are not objectively correct ways to handle certain issues. Take climate, for example. Suppose that both parties agreed that AGW was a problem we should deal with, but only disagreed on how to approach it. Does an administration, especially one who ran on a different climate action, not have the ability to execute that plan if they won just because the current expert disagrees?
Elon Musk's grandfather, Joshua Haldeman of Saskatchewan, was obsessed with Technocracy in the 1930-40s. I rather suspect that Joshua may have had a streak of Autism too. Which leads to thoughts which can be more technocratic than empathic.
Fast forward to the 2020s, and Elon Musk's pal Donald Trump is putting forward a lot of those same Technocracy ideas that Elon Musk's grandfather inspired in his grandson. H-m-m-m.
But then again, Trump's supposed enemies are putting forward some of the same ideas. So what's going on? Are we being lured into a giant Management of Reality scheme?
The "experts" never include anyone with expertise on human liberty, natural human rights, or the benefits of limited government. they always need to take something away from the people for the "greater good" or other ambiguous and subjective term.
Great article. This is the crux of the crazy we have been witnessing. Unfortunately, "to the benefit of the people" to the administrative state has been themselves for many a decade. Curious if we would still have small-medium farms and businesses but for the administrative state pushing things towards consolidation over the 70 or so years.
Again, it’s the executive branch versus the legislative branch, not democracy versus technocracy. Your framing of this has a grain of truth but also a bushel of nonsense.
KBJ is a DEI hire by President Autopen. She was selected for her race and gender, but she can't define what a woman is because she is not a biologist. "Trust the experts" and "follow the science" is permanently discredited after all the lies about the COVID jabs, Biden's senility, and the climate cult.
Selected also for her youth: the idea being she'll be around for a while. Looks we're going to be stuck with her.
But, yes, she doesn't appear all that sharp and seems unfamiliar [?!?!?] with the Bill of Rights.
The founders of this country tacitly assumed that an informed, engaged populace would not only be needed but would in fact exist! Our Department of Education seems focused on ensuring it does not. Here's to the demise of the Department of Education; a creation from the waning days of the Jimmy Carter administration as a token to the teachers unions.
The Department of Education has presided over the rapid deterioration of the US educational system. The reason we need to bring in H1-Bs is that our schools aren't preparing students to thrive and succeed in society or the workplace but be indoctrinated in half-assed Marxist/Critical Theory gibberish.
Wilson was a bigoted elitist who's list of failures is enormous (e.g., reaction to the Spanish Flu, enthusiasm for WWI, Versailles Treaty, creation of the IRS and FBI, etc.).
We may be stuck with her, but so are Kagan and Sotomayor who must find it pretty hard to try and be professional and collegial and have Brown Jackson just blurt out what ever she thinks of at the moment. She discredits the more substantial arguments of Kagan and Sotomayor.
Well, like the court system of liberal cities rule, she is "sick." She has several pre-existing medical conditions that require constant attention so she shouldn't be held accountable for her thoughts or her votes.
Yeah. No reason one can't (other than congenital STUPIDITY) start learning about the law AFTER one has been elevated to the highest legal position in the country. I'd say kudos, about time. That is the same reason some baseball players start in the majors then advance to the minor leagues ... then coach junior high school teams. Progress.
Pfffunny! To be fair, there is a learning curve whenever people scoot around from place to place. In her case, she can't very well publicly change from a "so blue and woke" viewpoint without feeling like she is abandoning the Dems bald faced hornet hive where she dwells in warmth and receives succor of tainted honey.
Is there any doubt that there's an inverse relationship between the growth of the DOE since created and public school achievement? Reading and math proficiency is abysmal, and continues to decline while the DOE budget has grown from $53 billion ($14 billion adjusted for inflation) in 1980 to the current budget of $268 billion.
While we're noting the failure of various "rule by experts," let's not give the FED an unreviewed pass. In the early '50s my dad took us out for a nickel cone. Now I go to the local Iowa ice cream shop and pay $5 for a scoop. 100x. Yes, it's a little higher quality. Still, since the FED started "controlling" the money supply a bit more than 100 years ago, what was a penny now requires a 32.5 cents. Shouldn't someone oversee their work?
The amount of spending is almost completely decoupled from any improvement in educational performance. Almost the entire decline in academic performance can be totally explained by the change in the demographics of the student body. It is a nearly perfect correlation. I expect the single most effective change in educational policy would be a strong emphasis on early proficiency in reading and writing proper English. I would bet heavily that academic and life performance cannot be avoided with overall improvement in that skill set. The pilgrims certainly understood that. The Protestant elite understood that. The educational establishment used to understand that. The teachers' unions understand that ... but they also understand that requires proficiency on the part of the pedagogies and hard work ... that is why they oppose it.
Bi-lingual education is fine but all students must be immersed in learning proper English from "day one".
You can't blame the Treaty of Versailles on Wilson, though. That was what the Europeans came up with after rejecting Wilson's far more lenient Fourteen Points plan.
Yeah, I have to wonder how she managed to become a judge in the first place.
It's one thing to have perverse ideas about the Constitution (e.g. the "Originalists"), or even to be a mole who flat-out wants to rip the whole thing up (e.g. Dominionists), but she seems genuinely oblivious to not only the basic American social contract, but possibly even to the most general understanding of how people and societies work.
Of course, it's not just her: The whole of the Washington Blob is constantly betraying the public trust, acting like a psychopath on the world-stage, choosing PR over reason, and violating the most primordial or intuitive moral logic, and acting totally SHOCKED! that people are even mad at them.
Exactly, there is much to criticize about RFK but the “expert” class collectively lit themselves on fire with all the “public health” fuckery of 2020-21. An average person could see that the Wu flu didn’t affect kids, school closures were harmful, park & beach closures were nonsense, natural immunity exists like it does for every other illness, and a lab leak was plausible if not probable, but we were told to turn our brains off and not notice all that, because we couldn’t be trusted with truth that had any complexity to it.
Yep. Incredible damage was done to the credibility of the medical profession.
On top of your list -- which I completely agree with, the treatment of children was flat-out criminal -- I'd add:
** That no curative or treatment options for COVID were considered. In fact, any mention of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin -- both established treatments with HUGE clinical histories -- was treated as either idiotic or malpractice. The objective was to push the vaccination. Why? I am afraid that the answer to that question is very unpleasant.
** This was concurrent with the enthusiasm for "gender-affirming care" [sic!!!] as a new profit center, regardless of the fact that it's really nothing but abuse of the mentally ill and an abomination performed on children.
That so many doctors and hospitals went along with these two patently absurd directives was extremely unsettling.
That reminds me of “experts” calling ivermectin “horse paste” when people were taking the human version. It should’ve been sufficient to point out that it’s an anti-parasite drug and thus unlikely to do much against a virus, but they just had to get the sickest social media burn even if it meant sacrificing more of their credibility.
To all you dog owners out there paying gobs of dollars for heart worm medicine: 35 years ago my bird hunting buddy and veterinarian told me to go out to the local farmers CoOp and buy a vial of Ivermectin. Administer .10 Cc / 10 lbs weight once a month. Ivermectin kills all parasites except tape worms. I’ve been doing it for 35 years. God knows how much money I’ve saved. Oh, and administer by mouth. Draw the liquid via needle, then of course remove the needle.
As I noted in the comment above, I shouldn't have "gotten into the weeds" on a subject of which I do not claim any expertise.
My point, that I doubt you disagree with, was that there was zero interest in treatments that might reduce the symptoms or curative mechanisms.
It was vaccine-or-nothing; which still seems remarkably odd.
And, yes, the response was largely idiotic regarding ivermectin -- regardless of whether or not it was useful in treating or alleviating the symptoms of COVID. Particularly given that the discoverers were awarded the Nobel some forty years after identifying it and that ivermectin is one of the most widely human-prescribed drugs and is on the WHO's (again, regardless of what one thinks of that body's political agenda) list of essential medications.
There was also the mocking of Trump when he mention that a chlorine substance was being explored. Unfortunately, he or any of his team, failed to clarify that this was likely chlorine dioxide which is a powerful and widely used anti-viral and anti-bacterial chemical. While it must be used with extreme caution, it is also reported as being used by many people personally in very small doses.
The only effective treatment for serious cases of Covid was immune suppression. Glucocorticoids were used and reported in China in March 2020 and later confirmed/ "discovered" by British researchers in mid July 2020. The World Health Organization forbade the use of such approaches until August 2020 when they noted it MIGHT be effective in some cases of respiratory virus diseases. This after glucocorticoids were accepted as Standard of Care (together with antibiotics) in veterinary medicine for serious respiratory viral infections. Also Kawasaki's Disease in humans (which shares many features such as 'Rona toes with Covid) was cured in serious cases by glucocorticoids.
Some people even now want to put the WHO in charge of global health. No dissent allowed.
My understanding is that the glucocorticoids prevented cytokine storms and out of control inflammatory responses to the virus that overwhelmed some people. Glucocorticoids did not treat Covid-19, in fact they lower innate immune responses to bacteria and viruses.
Covid-19 was the disease, not the virus (SARS-CoV2). Many serious cases of Covid were improved by damping down the over-reaction of the immune system by glucocorticoids or more selective monoclonal antibodies. While the Chinese noted improvement with immunosuppressants in Covid, they didn't give hard numbers. The Brits noted about 30% of serious, potentially fatal cases were "cured". Most people handled the virus well, but some didn't handle their own immune over-reactions (Kawasaki disease is an over-reaction to seasonal respiratory viruses "cured" by glucocorticoids.) Treatment with glucocorticoids is standard of care for serious respiratory viral infections in veterinary medicine along with antibiotics (since opportunistic infections, always present but under control by immune surveillance, pop under after derangement of the immune system by the virus even before glucocorticoid treatment. Some Covid deaths were likely really bacterial pneumonia deaths.) Some speculate that Spanish Flu was also due to overactivation of the immune system in young adults.
Cytokine storms are descriptive generic terms for dangerous over-activations of the immune system and come in many "flavors" and have been seen in varying degrees with many potential therapies, particularly those targeting specific Cytokines and their receptors. We have so much more to learn! We get so much long, but hopefully we should learn from our mistakes.
There were over 100 clinical trials with ivermectin against Covid, most showed efficacy for prevention (like the mRNA vaccines-- although you only became "officially" vaccinated two weeks after the 2nd jab). There are no Gold Standard double-blinded placebo-controlled large number of subjects clinical trials for ivermectin against Covid (no one would pay for a drug off patent), but the meta-analysis ( c19early.org/i ) is convincing. The Gold Standard Emergency Use Authorization clinical trials for the mRNA vaccines showed no protection against DEATH and protection against transmission wasn't specifically examined.
Both ivermectin and HCQ are very safe drugs (HCQ is approved for diabetes in India since 2014) and no one has a clue how they act. HCQ was originally for malaria, but the parasite became resistant so mostly used for autoimmune diseases today. Both are being tried for oncology.
"It was vaccine-or-nothing". There never was any explanation for why the mRNA vaccines had to be given as a MONOTHERAPY. Supplements are not needed in the young and healthy, but frequently the elderly have nutritional deficiencies. Dark skinned people need Vitamin D3 supplementation in northern latitudes. Countries which could not afford the mRNA vaccines did much better than Western countries (the US had the 14th worst Covid death rate of ~200 countries). With 4.2% of the world's population, the US had 17.4% of global Covid deaths.
The US "experts"-- Fauci, Redfield, Birx-- were AIDS experts, not respiratory virus experts. Scientists joked that they were surprised that Covid wasn't treated with condoms and sterile needles. Science needs dissent and discussion, not censorship and experts.
Thanks for the info! I recall hearing mention of ivermectin and HCQ as possibly reducing symptoms or some other kind of analgesic effect.
In particular, there's no money in drugs, as you put it, "off patent".
What a rotten situation. I wound up going into math instead of medicine and am genuinely saddened by the current state of the medical profession. Credibility was seriously damaged.
Though they'll never admit it, it was clear why Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine were demonized, and why MDs who prescribed them were attacked, threatened and/or de-licensed. Not because they weren't safe, in fact, as noted elsewhere here, they're SO safe they're on the WHO's List of Essential Medicines. No, it was because they couldn't get their Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for their precious vaccine if any effective, available alternatives existed, and both of those were. Given how many people who tried to give their hospitalized and dying loved ones one of those but were forbidden to do so, we're talking evil on a whole other level.
Corporate "medicine" coupled with the "expert" state ... Not always terrible when it is right. A horrible shitshow in almost every conseivable way when it is wrong.
One of the times I just couldn't get my cell phone camera out quickly enough. During the lockdown, I was out for a run on a remote rural road. I heard a horse at a gallop coming behind me. The rider was a middle aged woman wearing a full mask.
Other than myself, no one within at least half a mile.
The government "public health" leadership is not RFK Jr. It is folks like Bhattacharya, Makary and Oz who are not "ignorant party loyalists", but highly competent men of character. The USA vs Slaughter decision may sign their pink slips when the next Dem President takes power, but what they will accomplish until that time will benefit our citizens. And when the next populist President takes power there will be other highly competent and principled folks who will be appointed. Thank the Lord we have 4 year Presidential terms. A lot can be done in that time.
And yet, despite these affronts to common sense, there were no public protests of the BLM kind that took place without sanction. So, the former group acted in fear, while the latter group was emboldened by the support of the Democratic Party, the Biden admin and the media. Nothing could be clearer.
And that list is just the tip of the iceberg regarding those agencies. Great to clean house of the elderly career employees and even better to hire young people who have graduated less than 5 years ago from major universities which have kept up with the latest developments in science and health.
The expert-class ITSELF warned against those things to start with - but that was all shut out at (*ahem*) warp-speed by those were less interested in being "experts" than in being "authorities". Those two personality-types are not only not synonymous, they're antagonistic.
Pointing out other unscientific dumbassery doesn't make RFK Jr. look any better. He's from the same "in an abundance of caution" school that supports "my kid is autistic, it must be vaccines" and "McDonald's is unclean."
I'm with Cheryl. You have to ask yourself, how much of my objection to RFK, Jr. is because what he's doing is so "awful" (in the eyes of critics) or because it's just so contrary to what we've been told for so long?
The system has been so hopelessly corrupt for so long that this state of extreme dysfunctional corruption has become completely normalized. So, any pushback against it is going to seem extreme, when it's anything but.
Consider this 2009 quote from Dr. Marcia Angell: "It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine."
The mere fact that most people have never seen that quote (when it should have been shouted from the banners of newspapers and the voices of nightly-news hosts) tells you everything you need to know about entrenched power structures in our country).
And that was 16+ years ago. Zero reason to think it's gotten any better since then. Think of the import of her statement: the lion's share of research studies can't be taken at face value, thanks to the influence of Big Pharma $.
Against THAT backdrop, IMO, what RFK, Jr., Makary, Battacharya. Malone, Kuldorff, Prasad, and others are doing can't happen fast enough...
Because some research may have been tainted by influence from drug companies and some doctors are quacks, let's discard the entirety of accepted science about vaccines and side effects? Yes, that will generate some "pushback."
With all due respect...uh, you mean throwing out the accepted wisdom of the superiority of natural immunity, which has been a given forever?
Or the proven phenomenon of "original antigenic sin" (a.k.a. pathogenic priming or immunological imprinting), which states that when you give a vaccine that's tagged to one strain of a virus to someone suffering from a different strain, the virus ends up worse. They KNEW this well before Covid. So, that kind of accepted science?
And speaking of "vaccines," the Covid jab wasn't a vaccine, according to the accepted definition of "vaccine" (i.e., an attenuated version of a virus designed to elicit the protective immune reaction, without sickening the patient in the process).
So, the CDC, realizing they were losing serious credibility by continuing to call it a "vaccine," just opted for the simplest solution: they just changed the definition of "vaccine" on their website to fit their mutant creation. So, who was discarding accepted science about vaccines again?
Of course the Covid jab wasn't a vaccine because it prevented neither infection nor transmission. So it did not meet the accepted scientific definition of "vaccine." It was a palliative that did not confer immunity nor protect the herd.
With all due respect, you seem immune to sarcasm. Discarding the entirely of accepted science is of course a boneheaded move, unjustified even when quackery and greed weave their distractions. Natural immunity is of course better than a vaccine. The challenge is to acquire immunity before being killed or paralyzed by the virus. You seem like a very serious person.
Vaccines for polio and smallpox have undergone significant human testing over decades. On the other hand, the Covid shots aren't even vaccines and "adverse events" (not well publicized) include clotting and heart damage. Moreover, the absence of serious danger of Covid to young, slim, healthy people, in the absence of any herd immunity, fails to justify government and commercial pressure. Yes, we need to continue questioning.
Disrespect for him and what he is trying to achieve, against all odds and all the money bags ready to torpedo him reveals more about you than it does about RFK.
Thank you. But I haven't researched him that well. Firing all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is of course startling. "This is absolutely unprecedented. RFK Jr. has many levers at his disposal to influence vaccine policy in the U.S., each with varying degrees of impact. But this move is a red-alert, level 4 alarm,” said Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist who’s consulted for the CDC." - Politico.
The new ACIP crew was handpicked by Kennedy, who believes vaccinations cause autism.
At a recent meeting, "Only two members of ACIP—physicians Hibbeln and H. Cody Meissner, MD—defended the safety and efficacy of hepatitis B vaccines.
During the meeting, Hibbeln pointed out that the virtual elimination of chronic hepatitis B infections in the generation of children born since 1991, when ACIP first recommended immunizing newborns within 24 hours of birth, is considered one of the *10 greatest accomplishments in science and medicine* (emphasis mine)." - Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-vaccines/during-chaotic-meeting-cdc-advisers-handpicked-rfk-jr-postpone-vote-changing
Disrespect for him and what he is trying to achieve definitely reveals alarm on my part but it can't hold a candle to that of health professionals.
KBJ makes an effective argument for her removal from the Supreme Court. She demonstrates , dare I say it, the same mental acuity as Trumps description of Tim Walz!😱
As I mentioned in a separate reply below, the most amusing part of her confirmation hearing was that by saying she needed to be a biologist to know what a woman was, she was implicitly acknowledging that gender is a matter of biology and not psychology, which is exactly what she was trying to avoid saying. This woman is an utter retard.
At age 71, I remember the days of my youth when "retard" was in common use to describe kids of normal intelligence who acted or spoke stupidly. This word should return to common usage. And, yes, KBJ is a retard.
Biden's most disastrous identity hire, to prove he's not racist, which of course he is, was special needs fraudster, Kamala Harris. She checked so many racial boxes that we didn't need a democratic national convention; just shove Bambi out to feed Godzilla, who turned out to be interested in more than destruction of DEI. Let's all sing. Godzilla the Thin-skinned Money Grubber, lived by the sea.
"Biden administration" hire. Dude just signed whatever they put in front of him. And yea, he had a long history of racism and sexism and warmongering. So the DNC forced the least cognitively capable candidate "Joe Six-Pack in Aviator Shades Licking Ice Creams" up so their strange agendas could be enacted by a fool.
No contest. Kamala Harris could never write an opinion that wasn't tainted by her childlike appreciation of the profundity of her unique insights, so lofty that they require complicated hand motions and a delivery comparable to reading a storybook to special needs children.
"The governor and I, we were all doing a tour of the library here and talking about the significance of the passage of time, right, the significance of the passage of time. So, when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time in terms of what we need to do to lay these wires. what we need to do to create these jobs. And there is such great significance to the passage of time when we think about a day in the life of our children." - Kamala Harris
Definitely could be a genetic component but possibly partly environmental. We know she is morbidly lazy and, while taking speaking classes in a Canadian high school, she learned it took less effort to bullshit people. Instead of learning anything, she concentrated on her acting, the nice Kamala, the angry Kamala, the profound Kamala. Being a minority in Canada likely created an environment of tolerance for her ruse, combined with a backup plan of righteous outrage were she ever challenged.
To quote H.L. Mencken, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.” Sadly, it applies to your posting.
For better or worse, this anti-science attitude is going to speed up the demise of American hegemony. America moved to the forefront of science and technology in large part because of the many top scientists and engineers who escaped Europe before, during, and after WWII. It stayed there as long as it did because of the large number of talented foreigners came to study and stayed. Note the past tense: Nature magazine last year rated the top research universities and 9 of the top 10 were in China, the 10th being Harvard, which Trump seems determined to destroy. This will get worse as scientist are beginning to desert the country for greener pastures and Trump's doing a great job of discouraging talent from coming to the US.
Now, dunno how to tell you this, but the definition of sex isn't simple at the edges. Yes, the large majority of us can clearly be separated out as male or female, enough that the species hasn't gone extinct. But not all of us are so clearly definable and there is complexity as you'll discover should you ask a biologist. Where for example would you put hermaphrodites? They're rare edge cases but they exist and you can't simply ignore them. Well, perhaps you can but science doesn't.
As for the covid vaccine and global warming, you're simply ignorant, I regret to say.
The technology behind the covid vaccine is the greatest discovery in the history of vaccines.
The physics is quite clear regarding global warming and is something scientists in a wide variety of fields are finding.
Regarding the coverup of Genocide Joe's senility, the one place we agree, how do scientists get blamed for that?
You make a few valid points but I don't think you realize how much junk masquerades as "science". Part of the evidence for this is the tsunami of garbage drivel published in even "reputable" "peer reviewed" journals, let alone the pay-for-play comic books.
Or perhaps I do. Medicine ain't as simple as, say physics as we're not interchangeable as electrons. Hell, we're not even sure yet whether light alcohol consumption is good for you or not.
There are problems with drug companies, um, skewing the results of tests. If you're interested in that and problems with medicine, see Goldacre's "Bad Medicine" and "Bad Pharma". And there are problems in academia due to the need to publish to get research grants and tenure.
But no single study should be considered definitive (again, parts of physics accept such, especially when the tests are extremely expensive and done openly) and notice there are error correcting mechanisms within the scientific community that raise these issues. A relevant example here: not only was Wakefield's paper retracted but he lost his license to practice medicine.
It's silly not to consider their performance at confirmation hearings as part of an overall assessment. It is one of the few public venues at which they (might) reveal aspects.of their judicial philosophy ... and be examined for suitability.
You could try reading their opinions. Confirmation hearings and purported “judicial philosophy” are BS, and have been since the Bork hearings 40 years ago.
It is. Because I had to file the paper copies and retrieve them for so many lawyers I got interested. I thought at the time that knowing how to use the Federal Register was something we all have available but don't know about it so lawyers have developed expertise that looks superb but we could do it, too. About 100 times I have told myself...read the FR today and then I look and as you say so well-- "the most mind numbing website I've ever seen." BUT it's where all the deeds get done that rule so much of daily life.
Ironic that KBJ is the one making the argument that we can’t have dumb people in positions of authority.
The fact that we are stuck with this moron in a lifetime appointment in itself refutes her argument that the country needs “credentialed experts” in unremovable positions ruling over the people.
Well, she did say that she required an expert (i.e., a biologist) to explain to her what a woman is. So at least she is consistent in her need for others' expertise.
The most amusing part of that was that by saying she needed to be a biologist to know what a woman was, she was implicitly acknowledging that gender is a matter of biology and not psychology, which is exactly what she was trying to avoid saying. This woman is an utter retard.
"the Constitution does not say that Congress cannot create an independent agency."
That's not how the Constitution works! It's an enumeration of what powers the federal government has, and if it doesn't explicitly say that Congress (or any other part of the government) *can* do something, then that body cannot do the thing. Otherwise the power is reserved to the states or to the people, per the 10th amendment. It is really disheartening to me that we have a sitting Supreme Court justice who seems willing to ignore this foundational fact about how our government is structured.
I can only hope that the current trend to rein in the powers, of the many Federal agencies, departments and commissions, continues. Congress has long abdicated it's responsibility for oversight of these monstrous bureaucracies. They like the fact that it enables them to have their cake and eat it too. They can still receive their quid pro quo campaign donations, while retaining the ability to appear appalled and "against" regulations that might change votes.
Congress should be required to debate and vote on every single regulation the agencies have issued and enforced as law. That should keep the rascals busy for the next decade.
For sure. On top of that - consider that statement on its own terms. I think a charitable assessment would put it on the level of a first-year law student.
Imagine that you're arguing in front of the Supreme Court and you hear that from one of the justices you know is going to vote against you. And then she just stares at you like it's some big mic drop. The more you think about it, the greater the disheartenment, lol.
Charitable, absolutely. I escaped law school from a lowly land grant place on the Great Plains in 1979. I remember the debate at that time on the developing power and sweep of regulatory agencies’ authority. When I read the comments of this Sup Crt Justice I was appalled, but not surprised. What is she — Harvard, Yale, Princeton? What questions do they ask on East Coast bar exams? What’s your favorite latte’? Quite something.
'"the Constitution does not say that Congress cannot create an independent agency."
'That's not how the Constitution works! It's an enumeration of what powers the federal government has, and if it doesn't explicitly say that Congress (or any other part of the government) *can* do something, then that body cannot do the thing'
Yes, even I knew that. Kind of shocking that a Supreme Court justice doesn't.
If you can find an audio version of this, I'd like to see it. No AOC fan here, but it seems that there is nothing supporting this quote. She definitely wants to regulate and restrict gun ownership, though.
There is a name for government by experts--it's called fascism, and both Wilson and FDR were basically fascist in their outlook...FDR openly admired Mussolini until it became politically inconvenient. I am always amazed that America has, more or less, managed to push these self-admiring tyrants back for so long. Thank God for the 1st and 2nd Amendment...otherwise they would rule us even more than they do.
In fact, the response to both 9/11 and COVID showed how partisan, biased and agenda-driven "experts" can be. And with categorically devastating results.
It sure seems that a large percentage of "revolutionaries" are rich kids who think they know better than everyone else. Which then gives them open license to do what they "need" to do as the "sacrifices of today are for the gains of tomorrow". (Admittedly, I just made up that last line :-)
By way of example, Friedrich Engels was a rich kid, Mao was a rich kid, Bill Ayers was a rich kid, etc.
I'm not claiming any expertise but I've read in several places that his father was a (comparatively) wealthy farmer who eventually cut Mao loose when it looked like he had become a "professional student":
...starts with: "Born to a peasant family in Shaoshan, Hunan, Mao studied in Changsha and was influenced by the 1911 Revolution and ideas of Chinese nationalism and anti-imperialism."
...but then later adds: "His father, Mao Yichang, was a formerly impoverished peasant who had become one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshan. Growing up in rural Hunan, Mao described his father as a stern disciplinarian, who would beat him and his three siblings, the boys Zemin and Zetan, as well as an adopted sister/cousin, Zejian."
...and: "His father saw no use in his son's intellectual pursuits, cut off his allowance and forced him to move into a hostel for the destitute."
Capitalism is clearly a pejorative to the likes of Bernie Sanders; Mandami, the astounding number that vote for both. Ask for a definition. If you don't get a coherent answer, it is a pejorative.
A pejorative is exactly what is called for, in many instances. They are quite overused in today's sound bite/click bait media however. They are not nearly as disparaging now days, thanks to over saturation. Being called Hitler is even losing gravitas.
Hmm if only there were an example of "experts" outsourcing viral research to China to avoid US regulations resulting in a worldwide pandemic killing millions, costing trillions and doing untold mental health damage? Maybe that would make people think twice about the superiority of the expert class? Nah!!
Maybe an example where the US government experts were so conceited and overconfident that they didn't bother to see if any other countries were doing it differently or even... gasp! better
"Justice" Ketanji Brown Jackson believes The First Ammendment was created to protect the government FROM the people and unimpeachable "experts" can be appointed by bribable representatives who should be impeached to rule in the interests of the people they openly despise. Also, she can't tell you what a woman is.
At least she inadvertently makes the strongest case yet for repealing all DEI/Affirmative Action laws and policies.
It's frightening how far up the ladder these "checkmarked" cretins manage to climb, and even more so the people who continue to support them regardless of the nonsense they spew or disastrous decisions they make.
If the court is overturning Humphrey’s Executor which protects an “independent, nonpartisan body of experts, charged with duties neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”
How does this fit: “Justices called the bluff by offering a carve-out, saying the Fed is a ‘uniquely structured, quasi-private entity” that wouldn’t come into play”. I’m having trouble seeing any difference in these descriptions, so not much of a carve out. So can we please get rid of the Fed?
That skepticism is warranted — and it’s exactly why the doctrine depends less on who the experts are and more on how tightly constrained their authority is supposed to be.
Humphrey’s Executor never assumed angels; it assumed narrow delegation, clear statutory limits, transparency, and judicial review as the safeguards against capture. The legitimacy wasn’t “they’re neutral,” it was “they’re boxed in.”
The problem today isn’t that experts have opinions — it’s that the boxes have dissolved. When delegation becomes open-ended, standards become discretionary, and review becomes deferential, “expertise” quietly turns into policy-making without electoral accountability.
At that point, whether the experts are unicorns or swamp creatures stops mattering — the structure has already failed.
It should also be noted that at the time of the Humphrey Executor decision (1935), it's doubtful the Court envisioned Congress creating the large number of agencies, and their associated regulations, to avoid direct responsibility and lessen their exposure to the retribution of less than happy voters. This, of course, led to career politicians by enabling enrichment from donor class (to look the other way) while simultaneously voicing voter friendly rhetoric.
That’s an important historical clarification, and I think you’re right.
Humphrey’s Executor assumed a far more modest administrative state — one where delegation was the exception, not the governing norm. The Court was imagining bounded agencies operating in narrow lanes, not an ecosystem of rule-making bodies capable of displacing political accountability at scale.
The risk you describe — diffusion of responsibility as a political strategy — is exactly why structural limits matter more than presumed good faith. Once delegation becomes a shield rather than a tool, voter accountability erodes regardless of intent.
At that point, the question isn’t whether experts are sincere, but whether the system still preserves a traceable line between power and consent.
Yes, and to build on that I just read a note saluting a recently deceased playwright that could apply to the 'actors' in the scenarios you describe: "It is, of course, ironic that the most intelligent and intellectual of playwrights should have lived during a period where humanity managed to dumb itself to an unimaginative degree via technology. A horror called Instagram has birthed a far greater horror called an influencer. The latter peddles a lifestyle to those with an IQ of single numbers. Once upon a time, very stupid people were tolerated and even helped by the state in order to survive the hurdles of life. Now the stigma of stupidity has been overturned, and the loudest and stupidest of the lot have prevailed. The least informed voices are the loudest, forcing the rest of us to learn to speak their language."
Good question — and you’re right to notice the surface similarity. The difference isn’t semantic; it’s structural.
Humphrey’s Executor rests on the claim that certain agencies exercise limited, specified authority within a statutory framework and are insulated to prevent partisan capture. The theory assumes narrow delegation + judicially reviewable standards.
What’s being challenged now isn’t the existence of expertise per se, but the scale and autonomy of modern administrative power — where agencies both interpret law and enforce it, often with minimal electoral or congressional correction.
The Fed carve-out reflects this tension. It’s treated as exceptional not because it fits the Humphrey’s model cleanly, but because monetary policy has been historically walled off as a macro-stability function with indirect democratic inputs (appointments, reporting, statutory mandates).
That doesn’t mean the carve-out is conceptually neat — just that the Court is signaling discomfort with generalized expert governance while avoiding immediate systemic shock.
In short: the contradiction you’re pointing to is real — it’s the unresolved legacy of Wilsonian administration colliding with constitutional accountability limits.
It all still seems like a lot of hand wavering that fails to adequately distinguish between “quasi-governmental” agencies. The Fed gets a pass but the rest do not, which is a policy decision not a constitutional decision. We’ve seen everywhere in the ostensibly democratic west this phenomenon of outsourcing governmental operations to avoid accountability and transparency. It was done in the Twitter files by outsourcing censorship to academia and NGOs. It’s done by the Five Eyes nations to evade Fourth Amendment constraints. In the UK they have a multitude of quasi governmental entities called Quangos (quasi governmental NGOs) that are similarly unaccountable.
None of this is compatible with a democracy or a constitutional republic. And in the US the Fed exercises vast powers that are completely entwined with the federal government and exerts a massive influence on our individual daily lives.
You’re not wrong to press on this — and I want to be clear about where I agree with you.
I’m not claiming there’s a clean constitutional principle that neatly distinguishes the Fed from other quasi-governmental bodies. There isn’t. The Fed carve-out is best understood as a containment decision, not a fully theorized justification. It reflects the Court’s reluctance to trigger immediate systemic disruption in monetary governance, not a belief that the Fed sits comfortably within Humphrey’s Executor as a matter of first principles.
That’s the key distinction I’m trying to draw: constitutional doctrine here is operating in a damage-control mode, not resolving the underlying legitimacy problem you’re pointing to.
Where I would push back slightly is this: recognizing that tension doesn’t commit us to saying “all such entities are constitutionally identical,” only that the existing framework has reached its explanatory limits. At that point, courts can signal discomfort, narrow delegations, and claw back authority incrementally — but they can’t, on their own, supply a replacement model of democratic accountability.
So yes — the outsourcing problem you describe is real, widespread, and corrosive. My claim isn’t that the Fed disproves it, but that the Fed shows how far the system has drifted beyond what constitutional doctrine can cleanly reconcile.
At that point, the question stops being purely legal and becomes political: what forms of expertise, if any, can coexist with democratic control without hollowing it out? The law can expose the fracture, but it can’t finish the argument.
“They can’t be allowed to put people like RFK in charge of science.” And yet voters not identifying as dumb or deplorable were perfectly content to have clueless Joe Biden in the White House starring in a four year long run of The Emperors New Clothes , his mental and physical infirmities on full display for all the world to see…also worth mentioning that these same folks also are advocating for 16 year olds to vote, as if they are qualified ….
It didn’t start with Biden. I first thought of the Emperor’s New Clothes when Obama ran for Senator and then President. He had never accomplished anything. Not a fan of Hillary Clinton but at least she had some accomplishments.
I'm still not prepared to say that election was legitimate. But I can't argue with the fact that "We the People" truly elect some very stupid people. They were on display in the Homeland Security committee meeting!!!
I just LOVE that people like Jackson ASSUME that all Trump voters are uneducated rubes.
I voted for Trump all three times. I am a 61 yr old white female. I buck all the trends. I have 3 degrees. One a doctorate of Veterinary Medicine. I SHOULD by all the trends, be a raging liberal....a veritable AWFL. But I am not.
I am not a far right person either. I am middle of the road and so considered a radical by people like Jackson. Because I don't believe in social fairy tales like the left does, I cannot be trusted to understand financial principles(I own a business, my fourth in my career). I am a property owner that understands taxes all too well.
Because I believe people should be responsible for their own destiny.....except for temporary, extreme cases.....then my expertise is no longer valid because I won't support their idiot causes.
I don't necessarily want an ALL powerful President, but at LEAST he can be voted out every 4 years. These perpetual experts like Fauci are free to screw over people forever.
Well said. Now if you'll just confirm that you were writing this while wearing a maroon "Gig'em" sweatshirt during the process, my faith will be restored.
Which is what, Lee? That politicians are likely to vote their interests, not ours. When an a big envelope is filled with $100 bills to be picked up weekly in some remote area, off the beaten path of D.C. every Friday that is their interest. Republicans are paid to look away.
Both parties are full of criminals that don't give a damn about you, the Constitution or the USA. Mass assassinations should be the order of the day for these people.
So many of the evils, problems and flashpoints of the 20th, and now 21st, Centuries can be traced back to Woodrow Wilson. It's breathtaking - despite his egotistic hubris, racism, opposition to equal rights, misogyny... breathtaking.
So - who validates the expertise of the independent expert agencies? Who corrects them when the experts are wrong, as they frequently are? This drum needs to be beaten constantly.
The issue of whether government agencies need to be run by specialized Ph.D.'s arises only because federal government power since Wilson's time has grown to the point of micromanaging more and more aspects of American life, from the economy to medicine to the environment.
I'm with the President on the narrow question of whether he has the right to fire Executive agency heads. But the long-term solution to the problem is to scale back the power of government to control our lives to the point that narrow, specialized expertise is not needed to implement federal law.
What a shame that during KBJ's confirmation hearing this follow up question wasn't asked:
"I understand you are not a biologist, but are you a woman? Is your husand a man?" We could have instantly assessed her expert status as qualification for the Court.
Great piece Matt, written with your typical insight and humor!
Not sure how but the last paragraph got chopped off in the email version of this document. My apologies. It reads:
"Trump is going to win this skirmish, but the larger war between “expert” administration and democracy awaits, with high potential to fracture the post-WWII order. These two ideas have lived in tension for a long time, and appear no longer to coexist peacefully. To be continued."
Your article was long and, typically, thoughtful and well worth reading in its entirety.
"Trump is going to win this skirmish, but the larger war between “expert” administration and democracy awaits, with high potential to fracture the post-WWII order. These two ideas have lived in tension for a long time, and appear no longer to coexist peacefully. To be continued."
Sums it up perfectly.
Government by Tech Bros and AI is obviously where we’re headed. Trump will be the justification for the shielding of governance from voters.
Oh, I don't think the government is going to give up that easily. It has the greatest threat to mankind on its side.
Bureaucracy.
Bureaucracy aka the Un-DOGE-ables. Their legacy lives on in the form of debt. "In FY 2024, interest payments ($882 billion) were greater than national defense outlays ($874 billion) for the first time." But undeterred, Congress just authorized $900 billion for defense, including higher pay for troops waiting for when they're needed for the next intervention for friends in the Middle East.
I see your $840 bil and raise you Another $60bil.
Call,raise or fold.
Trump is the excuse for all sorts of actions and beliefs. He takes the blame for a lot.
Simplest way to say a hell of a lot.
"Trump will be the justification for the shielding of governance from voters."
Executive agencies and the administrative state already shield governance from voters, whether run by commissions or single agency heads. They do that by drafting rules (legislating), enforcing them (executive) and adjudicating violations of the rule (judicial). They assume powers of two branches (legislative and judicial) that they don't have and so they cut out legislative accountability and an independent judiciary.
The administrative state is, and always has been, a constitutional abomination that insulates everyone from accountability and directly undermines our democratic republic. Make Congress write laws - they are accountable to voters. The President enforce them - he is accountable to voters. And the Judiciary adjudicate as Congress, through impeachment, and the President (and Senate), through appointments, can be held accountable. Then voters can hold our branches accountable.
I would wish that’s where were going.
Democrats have been trying to do this since Bush II. It's the reason I left that party during the Obama years and will never go back.
Disagree. Government by Mamdani types is where we are headed. No billionaires or tech bros stopped him and these types of politicians: young, energetic, savvy, presentable and tech and media savvy (remember Barack O'Bama) will get greater exposure and votes as the malaise of the unemployed and underemployed spreads, which is inevitable.
Mamdani didn't come out of nowhere. Neither did AOC. The radical left still needs the support of the party establishment, the permanent government, and the media to win. Those institutions aren't comfortable getting into bed with socialists. Besides, the current adminisration has been rapidly eroding their grip on power. Nothing is "inevitable".
That ship sailed when he was elected for a second term. Trump is going to break the back of the DC bureaucracy, and make accountability to voters a thing again. Or not. At the very least, we should get a smarter group of oligarchs.
As I mentioned, I think that part of the specific template came from Elon Musk and his Saskatchewan grandfather's influence. Technocracy Inc. -- where politics and technology mixed back in the 1930s-40s.
"The Technocrats viewed elected politicians as incompetent. They advocated replacing them with experts in science and engineering, who would “objectively” manage resources for the benefit of society."
https://theconversation.com/a-1930s-movement-wanted-to-merge-the-us-canada-and-greenland-heres-why-it-has-modern-resonances-252587
Two issues with Technocracy. One -- Trump is an elected official. Who else could sign the orders to start these initiatives?
Two -- Technocracy fails to take human nature into account. It reminds me of the sinister Yuval Noah Harari (who is actually a medieval and military historian....not an Evolutionary Biologist or Psychologist as a listener might think). Harari seems to have no notion of authentic humanity. Which is bad news. And these types are incredibly naive in believing that the human beings running these shows are going to be "objective" simply because they have a few skills in science and engineering.
Remember what happened with that sort during COVID-mania?
I remember a few Technocracy signs back in the 60s, had a yin-yang symbol in it. I don’t know how much activity it represented by then, I was just a kid. People were starting to catch on that a lot of obsession with technology was just scientism, just another form of religion.
True enough, Dave. Although Trump seems to have taken the Technocratic ideas of Elon Musk's Saskatchewan grandfather rather seriously. I suspect that Musk's grandfather had the same streak of Autism that Musk has....and so the obsession with technology rather than with human empathy.
When these influences hit a person who holds power, they might gain speed and become more worrisome.
The whole concept of experts running a society is found in the original Technocracy theory too.
"The whole concept of experts running a society is found in the original Technocracy theory too."
This ideal goes back as far as Plato's Philosopher Kings.
There's a deeper level.
Exec summary: this fits in to the broader context which is elites seeking to keep control, the story of the Trump era. It's another tactic alongside lawfare and gov't censorship of digital content.
Glutton for words version:
When you look at this Within the context of overall political philosophy, This is a subset of the overall elite versus the populace balance of power.
Since 2016 we have basically been living in a world where elites have lost power because of technology. Greater information flow direct to the people without gatekeepers via social media and the Internet Leads to less elite control.
The media loses its power to control the narrative, politicians lose their power to control the people through the narrative. New players speak directly to the people using the new media. This enables greater democracy, which sounds like a good thing but has side effects.
Elite versus the people is an axis of society that has existed in every political system, it's no different than patrician versus plebian in the Roman era. It's the same story except in the US we teach a school child version of democracy as the ideal without recognizing that there are actually some benefits to having a balance of elite power within the system. In our system that has been present through this media/narrative control I've been talking about, the influence of money on politics, and control of the political parties themselves.
All of that has been severely damaged by the advent of the Internet and social media. The parties also gave up some control willingly in the interests of "more democracy". For example, they went to open primaries and stopped gatekeeping who could even be candidates which was a level of Elite control.
Donald Trump just kept being who he is but took advantage of this change by leveraging social media and the direct megaphone. It's as simple as "More Democracy" enables demagoguery.
Many negative behaviors we end up seeing happening here and overseas results from elites who just lost power exercising remaining power to take back the control they just lost. If you can't gatekeep presidential candidates, you go after the elected president with impeachment, with scandals, trying to utilize that same power of gatekeeping who is worthy. Lawfare against political opponents is the exact same thing: elites trying to seize back power through any means they have at their disposal. In other countries the elites have retained a bit more power and for example in Germany they knockout entire parties and in Romania have succeeded in gatekeeping candidates.
So this KBJ comment and desire bureaucratic control should be seen in this overall context. Personally, I believe that we need to actually let the pendulum swing back a little bit without letting elites do all this shady stuff to take back control. Let's thoughtfully agree to the right balance of elite influence, because as Alan Ryan and many other political philosophers teach, a society actually is best structured by thoughtfully balancing those things rather than having a silly ideal like our puerile "democracy is awesome" idealism in the United States. Democracy is awesome when properly modulated, but more democracy is not always a good thing because pure democracy is crap. I would never agree to KBJ's standard of what that modulation should look like, but Centrists in both parties who come out of the elite don't all have terrible ideas. they just can't get heard today because those ideas aren't spectacular enough to gain traction on social media.
Two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner…
One place to begin to get to that center is education: a balance of ideas in our schools and universitites.
Yes, and stop funding the education for college degrees that basically serve to fill the ranks of the activist class.
I'm praying for democracy. Matt was right to put the "experts" in quotation marks. They are nothing of the kind. Their only expertise is in using the levers of power to stay in power, at any cost.
By DEI Hire I assume you mean like
Don, Jr.
Eric
Ivanka?
Not to mention Jared Kushner. Nothing but the best qualified!
Not much resemblance between them and a Harvard Law grad and former Circuit Judge. So I find your comment odd. Can you explain because I don't get it.
That's nepotism. DEI is even worse.
Meh, I think we still all (most?) got the point...unless you think WE'RE TOO DUMB... : )
Cuz you ain’t no expert
Uhhh...what point??
Duh……
The “post WWII order” should have been cracked a long time ago!!
But the post-WWII order was comprised of decades of carefully planned and instigated social engineering. It was not organically developed culture.
Therefore as long as the puppetmasters held the power, things continued in this vein.
Just respect (and obey) your betters, and all will be fine.
Sounds like an abusive parent.
Next up will be the Appointments Clause. It was no accident him being “overheard” saying “I can’t appoint anybody!”
Halligan and Habba will also be a test of “blue slips”.
Blue slips are not law. They are custom.
Yes, Trump will win this skirmish. He'll get to fire people simply because he doesn't like them, or because they said something he dislikes, and you're championing that. But there is no war between expert administration and democracy. As I've said elsewhere on this thread, when Congress creates an "independent" agency (FTC, SEC, FCC, NLRB, etc.), it's doing one narrow thing: limiting the President's power to fire agency heads except for cause (e.g., neglect of duty, malfeasance). Independence does not equal sovereignty. You know this, which is why your piece is a cynical hit job on Justice Brown Jackson that denigrates both her and your readers by implying that this is all in defence of democracy.
These comments are simply wrong. You are a pathetic democrat party as well. Keep trying to portray KBJ as a 'defender of democracy'.
I didn't say she was, you idiot. I said that Taibbi implied that his piece was in defence of democracy. And I'm not a "democrat party," whatever that's supposed to mean. Jfc. Why is it that 90% of Taibbi's readers have to be treated like fucking kindergartners?
I meant to add the word "hack" after democrat party. No matter. You're still a joke...a cynical 'hit piece' on poor KBJ. Laughable.
While true that someone with the temperament of Trump can use this power “less judiciously than ideal”, the problem with limiting such firings to “cause”, is that cause is too subjective and we go right back to the framing of expert v layman.
The problem, which I think should be more apparent than ever, is that we mistake “expertise” for knowing some objective realty in a subject. It’s just not the case. Look no further than education experts steering teachers away from phonics when teaching reading. It’s has had disastrous effects, which apparently, only laymen could see coming from a mile away. lol
Even in hard(er) sciences, there are not objectively correct ways to handle certain issues. Take climate, for example. Suppose that both parties agreed that AGW was a problem we should deal with, but only disagreed on how to approach it. Does an administration, especially one who ran on a different climate action, not have the ability to execute that plan if they won just because the current expert disagrees?
Obama flexed this lie ever since he held the office of POTUS. His people and the rest of the SWAMP still think they should 'rule over'.
"Progressives" have always been "technocrats" by another name. They are the arch-enemies of democracy, by definition.
https://principlesvstribes.substack.com/p/on-technocracy
Elon Musk's grandfather, Joshua Haldeman of Saskatchewan, was obsessed with Technocracy in the 1930-40s. I rather suspect that Joshua may have had a streak of Autism too. Which leads to thoughts which can be more technocratic than empathic.
Fast forward to the 2020s, and Elon Musk's pal Donald Trump is putting forward a lot of those same Technocracy ideas that Elon Musk's grandfather inspired in his grandson. H-m-m-m.
But then again, Trump's supposed enemies are putting forward some of the same ideas. So what's going on? Are we being lured into a giant Management of Reality scheme?
The "experts" never include anyone with expertise on human liberty, natural human rights, or the benefits of limited government. they always need to take something away from the people for the "greater good" or other ambiguous and subjective term.
Great article. This is the crux of the crazy we have been witnessing. Unfortunately, "to the benefit of the people" to the administrative state has been themselves for many a decade. Curious if we would still have small-medium farms and businesses but for the administrative state pushing things towards consolidation over the 70 or so years.
The Philosopher Kings redux
Matt—
Again, it’s the executive branch versus the legislative branch, not democracy versus technocracy. Your framing of this has a grain of truth but also a bushel of nonsense.
It's Georgias. A 2,400 year old argument that tricks college freshmen into supporting an expert-class oligarchy
KBJ is a DEI hire by President Autopen. She was selected for her race and gender, but she can't define what a woman is because she is not a biologist. "Trust the experts" and "follow the science" is permanently discredited after all the lies about the COVID jabs, Biden's senility, and the climate cult.
Selected also for her youth: the idea being she'll be around for a while. Looks we're going to be stuck with her.
But, yes, she doesn't appear all that sharp and seems unfamiliar [?!?!?] with the Bill of Rights.
The founders of this country tacitly assumed that an informed, engaged populace would not only be needed but would in fact exist! Our Department of Education seems focused on ensuring it does not. Here's to the demise of the Department of Education; a creation from the waning days of the Jimmy Carter administration as a token to the teachers unions.
The Department of Education has presided over the rapid deterioration of the US educational system. The reason we need to bring in H1-Bs is that our schools aren't preparing students to thrive and succeed in society or the workplace but be indoctrinated in half-assed Marxist/Critical Theory gibberish.
Wilson was a bigoted elitist who's list of failures is enormous (e.g., reaction to the Spanish Flu, enthusiasm for WWI, Versailles Treaty, creation of the IRS and FBI, etc.).
So much for the "experts".
We may be stuck with her, but so are Kagan and Sotomayor who must find it pretty hard to try and be professional and collegial and have Brown Jackson just blurt out what ever she thinks of at the moment. She discredits the more substantial arguments of Kagan and Sotomayor.
Kagan, yes, but I'm not impressed with Sotomayor. She seems to respond to her feelings more than the law.
You mean the Wise Latina who told us that 100,000 COCID-infected kids were on ventilators? That Sotomayor?
Maybe she confused ventilators with Ritalin. They both start with consonants.
#savagetruth
Pleased to see that I'm not the only one who remembers those two points whenever I hear this woman's name.
Well, like the court system of liberal cities rule, she is "sick." She has several pre-existing medical conditions that require constant attention so she shouldn't be held accountable for her thoughts or her votes.
ABSOLUTELY!!
But. . . she's our very own Wise Latina!
How dare you?!
And a WISE Latina to boot.
Let's hope she is able to experience growth and development in her position while being educated by her younger, more intelligent aides, in the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Yeah. No reason one can't (other than congenital STUPIDITY) start learning about the law AFTER one has been elevated to the highest legal position in the country. I'd say kudos, about time. That is the same reason some baseball players start in the majors then advance to the minor leagues ... then coach junior high school teams. Progress.
Pfffunny! To be fair, there is a learning curve whenever people scoot around from place to place. In her case, she can't very well publicly change from a "so blue and woke" viewpoint without feeling like she is abandoning the Dems bald faced hornet hive where she dwells in warmth and receives succor of tainted honey.
Is there any doubt that there's an inverse relationship between the growth of the DOE since created and public school achievement? Reading and math proficiency is abysmal, and continues to decline while the DOE budget has grown from $53 billion ($14 billion adjusted for inflation) in 1980 to the current budget of $268 billion.
While we're noting the failure of various "rule by experts," let's not give the FED an unreviewed pass. In the early '50s my dad took us out for a nickel cone. Now I go to the local Iowa ice cream shop and pay $5 for a scoop. 100x. Yes, it's a little higher quality. Still, since the FED started "controlling" the money supply a bit more than 100 years ago, what was a penny now requires a 32.5 cents. Shouldn't someone oversee their work?
The amount of spending is almost completely decoupled from any improvement in educational performance. Almost the entire decline in academic performance can be totally explained by the change in the demographics of the student body. It is a nearly perfect correlation. I expect the single most effective change in educational policy would be a strong emphasis on early proficiency in reading and writing proper English. I would bet heavily that academic and life performance cannot be avoided with overall improvement in that skill set. The pilgrims certainly understood that. The Protestant elite understood that. The educational establishment used to understand that. The teachers' unions understand that ... but they also understand that requires proficiency on the part of the pedagogies and hard work ... that is why they oppose it.
Bi-lingual education is fine but all students must be immersed in learning proper English from "day one".
You can't blame the Treaty of Versailles on Wilson, though. That was what the Europeans came up with after rejecting Wilson's far more lenient Fourteen Points plan.
Point taken -- I'll have to investigate.
I had though he was party to the ostensibly-punitive version but I'll look into the "Fourteen Points" plan.
Thank you for the note!
The English counter was “God Himself had only ten”
Yeah, I have to wonder how she managed to become a judge in the first place.
It's one thing to have perverse ideas about the Constitution (e.g. the "Originalists"), or even to be a mole who flat-out wants to rip the whole thing up (e.g. Dominionists), but she seems genuinely oblivious to not only the basic American social contract, but possibly even to the most general understanding of how people and societies work.
Of course, it's not just her: The whole of the Washington Blob is constantly betraying the public trust, acting like a psychopath on the world-stage, choosing PR over reason, and violating the most primordial or intuitive moral logic, and acting totally SHOCKED! that people are even mad at them.
And "redlining" didn't he?
Thought that was Roosevelt, a bit later.
Whose list, not who's list.
Touche, Noam. True. Not going to edit it though. It's the possessive not the contraction with "is". :-)
It’s not like almost anyone under 40 knows the difference…🤦♂️
*raises hand*
🤣
An intentionally-bad hire meant to cause chaos within the system and demoralize the population.
I think that is a reasonable conclusion.
Sure seems to be the result....
I have known a few of those.
Exactly, there is much to criticize about RFK but the “expert” class collectively lit themselves on fire with all the “public health” fuckery of 2020-21. An average person could see that the Wu flu didn’t affect kids, school closures were harmful, park & beach closures were nonsense, natural immunity exists like it does for every other illness, and a lab leak was plausible if not probable, but we were told to turn our brains off and not notice all that, because we couldn’t be trusted with truth that had any complexity to it.
Yep. Incredible damage was done to the credibility of the medical profession.
On top of your list -- which I completely agree with, the treatment of children was flat-out criminal -- I'd add:
** That no curative or treatment options for COVID were considered. In fact, any mention of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin -- both established treatments with HUGE clinical histories -- was treated as either idiotic or malpractice. The objective was to push the vaccination. Why? I am afraid that the answer to that question is very unpleasant.
** This was concurrent with the enthusiasm for "gender-affirming care" [sic!!!] as a new profit center, regardless of the fact that it's really nothing but abuse of the mentally ill and an abomination performed on children.
That so many doctors and hospitals went along with these two patently absurd directives was extremely unsettling.
That reminds me of “experts” calling ivermectin “horse paste” when people were taking the human version. It should’ve been sufficient to point out that it’s an anti-parasite drug and thus unlikely to do much against a virus, but they just had to get the sickest social media burn even if it meant sacrificing more of their credibility.
To all you dog owners out there paying gobs of dollars for heart worm medicine: 35 years ago my bird hunting buddy and veterinarian told me to go out to the local farmers CoOp and buy a vial of Ivermectin. Administer .10 Cc / 10 lbs weight once a month. Ivermectin kills all parasites except tape worms. I’ve been doing it for 35 years. God knows how much money I’ve saved. Oh, and administer by mouth. Draw the liquid via needle, then of course remove the needle.
As I noted in the comment above, I shouldn't have "gotten into the weeds" on a subject of which I do not claim any expertise.
My point, that I doubt you disagree with, was that there was zero interest in treatments that might reduce the symptoms or curative mechanisms.
It was vaccine-or-nothing; which still seems remarkably odd.
And, yes, the response was largely idiotic regarding ivermectin -- regardless of whether or not it was useful in treating or alleviating the symptoms of COVID. Particularly given that the discoverers were awarded the Nobel some forty years after identifying it and that ivermectin is one of the most widely human-prescribed drugs and is on the WHO's (again, regardless of what one thinks of that body's political agenda) list of essential medications.
There was also the mocking of Trump when he mention that a chlorine substance was being explored. Unfortunately, he or any of his team, failed to clarify that this was likely chlorine dioxide which is a powerful and widely used anti-viral and anti-bacterial chemical. While it must be used with extreme caution, it is also reported as being used by many people personally in very small doses.
The only effective treatment for serious cases of Covid was immune suppression. Glucocorticoids were used and reported in China in March 2020 and later confirmed/ "discovered" by British researchers in mid July 2020. The World Health Organization forbade the use of such approaches until August 2020 when they noted it MIGHT be effective in some cases of respiratory virus diseases. This after glucocorticoids were accepted as Standard of Care (together with antibiotics) in veterinary medicine for serious respiratory viral infections. Also Kawasaki's Disease in humans (which shares many features such as 'Rona toes with Covid) was cured in serious cases by glucocorticoids.
Some people even now want to put the WHO in charge of global health. No dissent allowed.
My understanding is that the glucocorticoids prevented cytokine storms and out of control inflammatory responses to the virus that overwhelmed some people. Glucocorticoids did not treat Covid-19, in fact they lower innate immune responses to bacteria and viruses.
Covid-19 was the disease, not the virus (SARS-CoV2). Many serious cases of Covid were improved by damping down the over-reaction of the immune system by glucocorticoids or more selective monoclonal antibodies. While the Chinese noted improvement with immunosuppressants in Covid, they didn't give hard numbers. The Brits noted about 30% of serious, potentially fatal cases were "cured". Most people handled the virus well, but some didn't handle their own immune over-reactions (Kawasaki disease is an over-reaction to seasonal respiratory viruses "cured" by glucocorticoids.) Treatment with glucocorticoids is standard of care for serious respiratory viral infections in veterinary medicine along with antibiotics (since opportunistic infections, always present but under control by immune surveillance, pop under after derangement of the immune system by the virus even before glucocorticoid treatment. Some Covid deaths were likely really bacterial pneumonia deaths.) Some speculate that Spanish Flu was also due to overactivation of the immune system in young adults.
Cytokine storms are descriptive generic terms for dangerous over-activations of the immune system and come in many "flavors" and have been seen in varying degrees with many potential therapies, particularly those targeting specific Cytokines and their receptors. We have so much more to learn! We get so much long, but hopefully we should learn from our mistakes.
I wasn't specific enough. I had read that ivermectin and hydroxycholoroquine had analgesic effects, maybe primarily in early stages.
I shouldn't have gotten mired in details regarding which I am definitely not an expert.
One thing is clear though, there was no emphasis on curative or even on treatments that would reduce the symptoms. It was vaccine-or-nothing.
There were over 100 clinical trials with ivermectin against Covid, most showed efficacy for prevention (like the mRNA vaccines-- although you only became "officially" vaccinated two weeks after the 2nd jab). There are no Gold Standard double-blinded placebo-controlled large number of subjects clinical trials for ivermectin against Covid (no one would pay for a drug off patent), but the meta-analysis ( c19early.org/i ) is convincing. The Gold Standard Emergency Use Authorization clinical trials for the mRNA vaccines showed no protection against DEATH and protection against transmission wasn't specifically examined.
Both ivermectin and HCQ are very safe drugs (HCQ is approved for diabetes in India since 2014) and no one has a clue how they act. HCQ was originally for malaria, but the parasite became resistant so mostly used for autoimmune diseases today. Both are being tried for oncology.
"It was vaccine-or-nothing". There never was any explanation for why the mRNA vaccines had to be given as a MONOTHERAPY. Supplements are not needed in the young and healthy, but frequently the elderly have nutritional deficiencies. Dark skinned people need Vitamin D3 supplementation in northern latitudes. Countries which could not afford the mRNA vaccines did much better than Western countries (the US had the 14th worst Covid death rate of ~200 countries). With 4.2% of the world's population, the US had 17.4% of global Covid deaths.
The US "experts"-- Fauci, Redfield, Birx-- were AIDS experts, not respiratory virus experts. Scientists joked that they were surprised that Covid wasn't treated with condoms and sterile needles. Science needs dissent and discussion, not censorship and experts.
Thanks for the info! I recall hearing mention of ivermectin and HCQ as possibly reducing symptoms or some other kind of analgesic effect.
In particular, there's no money in drugs, as you put it, "off patent".
What a rotten situation. I wound up going into math instead of medicine and am genuinely saddened by the current state of the medical profession. Credibility was seriously damaged.
If that happens, people worldwide will be dying like flies. But I'll bet democrats would LOVE that.
Though they'll never admit it, it was clear why Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine were demonized, and why MDs who prescribed them were attacked, threatened and/or de-licensed. Not because they weren't safe, in fact, as noted elsewhere here, they're SO safe they're on the WHO's List of Essential Medicines. No, it was because they couldn't get their Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for their precious vaccine if any effective, available alternatives existed, and both of those were. Given how many people who tried to give their hospitalized and dying loved ones one of those but were forbidden to do so, we're talking evil on a whole other level.
Corporate "medicine" coupled with the "expert" state ... Not always terrible when it is right. A horrible shitshow in almost every conseivable way when it is wrong.
What choice did they have under the "Biden administration" gang of idiots?
Army of MORONS. Herd of JACKASSES. Hive of IMBECILES. Flock of FUCKS.
Went along and still are going along. They haven't given up the fight yet.
Extremely unsettling is a rather mild description of how I felt!
One of the times I just couldn't get my cell phone camera out quickly enough. During the lockdown, I was out for a run on a remote rural road. I heard a horse at a gallop coming behind me. The rider was a middle aged woman wearing a full mask.
Other than myself, no one within at least half a mile.
She didn't want to do infect ... the horse. And versa-visa.
The government "public health" leadership is not RFK Jr. It is folks like Bhattacharya, Makary and Oz who are not "ignorant party loyalists", but highly competent men of character. The USA vs Slaughter decision may sign their pink slips when the next Dem President takes power, but what they will accomplish until that time will benefit our citizens. And when the next populist President takes power there will be other highly competent and principled folks who will be appointed. Thank the Lord we have 4 year Presidential terms. A lot can be done in that time.
And just go hang out at the big box stores and liquor stores that were still open.
But the left is still clueless about what they did, and both bemoan the lost of America's trust in "experts", and, of course, blame it on Trump.
No they are not clueless.
The Left is motivated by Malice Oblige, the Obligation to be Malicious.
Any feigned innocence is deception.
ABSOLUTELY!! Their sheople are clueless.
And yet, despite these affronts to common sense, there were no public protests of the BLM kind that took place without sanction. So, the former group acted in fear, while the latter group was emboldened by the support of the Democratic Party, the Biden admin and the media. Nothing could be clearer.
And that list is just the tip of the iceberg regarding those agencies. Great to clean house of the elderly career employees and even better to hire young people who have graduated less than 5 years ago from major universities which have kept up with the latest developments in science and health.
But the youngens are all already brainwashed. Practicing Social Justice, not medicine
And Trump had to be voted out at all cost
The expert-class ITSELF warned against those things to start with - but that was all shut out at (*ahem*) warp-speed by those were less interested in being "experts" than in being "authorities". Those two personality-types are not only not synonymous, they're antagonistic.
Pointing out other unscientific dumbassery doesn't make RFK Jr. look any better. He's from the same "in an abundance of caution" school that supports "my kid is autistic, it must be vaccines" and "McDonald's is unclean."
I'm with Cheryl. You have to ask yourself, how much of my objection to RFK, Jr. is because what he's doing is so "awful" (in the eyes of critics) or because it's just so contrary to what we've been told for so long?
The system has been so hopelessly corrupt for so long that this state of extreme dysfunctional corruption has become completely normalized. So, any pushback against it is going to seem extreme, when it's anything but.
Consider this 2009 quote from Dr. Marcia Angell: "It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine."
Some context:
https://forheartstrong.com/blogs/news/the-telling-message-of-dr-marcia-angell-a-reflective-blog-on-medical-research-credibility
https://participatorymedicine.org/epatients/2012/03/former-nejm-editors-on-the-corruption-of-american-medicine-ny-times.html
The mere fact that most people have never seen that quote (when it should have been shouted from the banners of newspapers and the voices of nightly-news hosts) tells you everything you need to know about entrenched power structures in our country).
And that was 16+ years ago. Zero reason to think it's gotten any better since then. Think of the import of her statement: the lion's share of research studies can't be taken at face value, thanks to the influence of Big Pharma $.
Against THAT backdrop, IMO, what RFK, Jr., Makary, Battacharya. Malone, Kuldorff, Prasad, and others are doing can't happen fast enough...
Because some research may have been tainted by influence from drug companies and some doctors are quacks, let's discard the entirety of accepted science about vaccines and side effects? Yes, that will generate some "pushback."
With all due respect...uh, you mean throwing out the accepted wisdom of the superiority of natural immunity, which has been a given forever?
Or the proven phenomenon of "original antigenic sin" (a.k.a. pathogenic priming or immunological imprinting), which states that when you give a vaccine that's tagged to one strain of a virus to someone suffering from a different strain, the virus ends up worse. They KNEW this well before Covid. So, that kind of accepted science?
And speaking of "vaccines," the Covid jab wasn't a vaccine, according to the accepted definition of "vaccine" (i.e., an attenuated version of a virus designed to elicit the protective immune reaction, without sickening the patient in the process).
So, the CDC, realizing they were losing serious credibility by continuing to call it a "vaccine," just opted for the simplest solution: they just changed the definition of "vaccine" on their website to fit their mutant creation. So, who was discarding accepted science about vaccines again?
EXCELLENT!!
Of course the Covid jab wasn't a vaccine because it prevented neither infection nor transmission. So it did not meet the accepted scientific definition of "vaccine." It was a palliative that did not confer immunity nor protect the herd.
With all due respect, you seem immune to sarcasm. Discarding the entirely of accepted science is of course a boneheaded move, unjustified even when quackery and greed weave their distractions. Natural immunity is of course better than a vaccine. The challenge is to acquire immunity before being killed or paralyzed by the virus. You seem like a very serious person.
I don't think anyone is rejecting the "entirety" of accepted science. Let us never stop questioning, rethinking and testing "settled" anything.
Vaccines for polio and smallpox have undergone significant human testing over decades. On the other hand, the Covid shots aren't even vaccines and "adverse events" (not well publicized) include clotting and heart damage. Moreover, the absence of serious danger of Covid to young, slim, healthy people, in the absence of any herd immunity, fails to justify government and commercial pressure. Yes, we need to continue questioning.
Disrespect for him and what he is trying to achieve, against all odds and all the money bags ready to torpedo him reveals more about you than it does about RFK.
Thank you. But I haven't researched him that well. Firing all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is of course startling. "This is absolutely unprecedented. RFK Jr. has many levers at his disposal to influence vaccine policy in the U.S., each with varying degrees of impact. But this move is a red-alert, level 4 alarm,” said Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist who’s consulted for the CDC." - Politico.
The new ACIP crew was handpicked by Kennedy, who believes vaccinations cause autism.
At a recent meeting, "Only two members of ACIP—physicians Hibbeln and H. Cody Meissner, MD—defended the safety and efficacy of hepatitis B vaccines.
During the meeting, Hibbeln pointed out that the virtual elimination of chronic hepatitis B infections in the generation of children born since 1991, when ACIP first recommended immunizing newborns within 24 hours of birth, is considered one of the *10 greatest accomplishments in science and medicine* (emphasis mine)." - Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-vaccines/during-chaotic-meeting-cdc-advisers-handpicked-rfk-jr-postpone-vote-changing
Disrespect for him and what he is trying to achieve definitely reveals alarm on my part but it can't hold a candle to that of health professionals.
KBJ makes an effective argument for her removal from the Supreme Court. She demonstrates , dare I say it, the same mental acuity as Trumps description of Tim Walz!😱
The “R” word…
That was hilarious
As I mentioned in a separate reply below, the most amusing part of her confirmation hearing was that by saying she needed to be a biologist to know what a woman was, she was implicitly acknowledging that gender is a matter of biology and not psychology, which is exactly what she was trying to avoid saying. This woman is an utter retard.
At age 71, I remember the days of my youth when "retard" was in common use to describe kids of normal intelligence who acted or spoke stupidly. This word should return to common usage. And, yes, KBJ is a retard.
My daughter likes to use the term "twat waffle" for these types LOL.
I am not sure her intellect rides to the level of "utter retard". I wonder who took the bar exam for her.
EXCELLENT!! So sex (as in gender) isn't a social construct? Who knew ... Is that why sociologists don't deliver babies?
She’s a master stroke.
Everything that she says must be opposed by anyone who doesn’t want to appear insane.
That woman (or so I presume, not being a biologist) is dumber than a sack of hair.
Biden's most disastrous identity hire, to prove he's not racist, which of course he is, was special needs fraudster, Kamala Harris. She checked so many racial boxes that we didn't need a democratic national convention; just shove Bambi out to feed Godzilla, who turned out to be interested in more than destruction of DEI. Let's all sing. Godzilla the Thin-skinned Money Grubber, lived by the sea.
"Biden administration" hire. Dude just signed whatever they put in front of him. And yea, he had a long history of racism and sexism and warmongering. So the DNC forced the least cognitively capable candidate "Joe Six-Pack in Aviator Shades Licking Ice Creams" up so their strange agendas could be enacted by a fool.
"...just shove Bambi out to feed Godzilla" alone is worth a "like'.
Speaking of DEI hires, who would come out as dumbest SCOTUS justice, KBJ or Kamala Harris?
No contest. Kamala Harris could never write an opinion that wasn't tainted by her childlike appreciation of the profundity of her unique insights, so lofty that they require complicated hand motions and a delivery comparable to reading a storybook to special needs children.
"The governor and I, we were all doing a tour of the library here and talking about the significance of the passage of time, right, the significance of the passage of time. So, when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time in terms of what we need to do to lay these wires. what we need to do to create these jobs. And there is such great significance to the passage of time when we think about a day in the life of our children." - Kamala Harris
She can't write (or say) anything coherent because she is congenitally brain damaged.
Definitely could be a genetic component but possibly partly environmental. We know she is morbidly lazy and, while taking speaking classes in a Canadian high school, she learned it took less effort to bullshit people. Instead of learning anything, she concentrated on her acting, the nice Kamala, the angry Kamala, the profound Kamala. Being a minority in Canada likely created an environment of tolerance for her ruse, combined with a backup plan of righteous outrage were she ever challenged.
Distinct possibility is that the “experts” never were experts
She is the best argument I've ever heard for SCOTUS term limits - even better than Sotomayor (Obama's "wise latina”) and that's a low bar.
To quote H.L. Mencken, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.” Sadly, it applies to your posting.
For better or worse, this anti-science attitude is going to speed up the demise of American hegemony. America moved to the forefront of science and technology in large part because of the many top scientists and engineers who escaped Europe before, during, and after WWII. It stayed there as long as it did because of the large number of talented foreigners came to study and stayed. Note the past tense: Nature magazine last year rated the top research universities and 9 of the top 10 were in China, the 10th being Harvard, which Trump seems determined to destroy. This will get worse as scientist are beginning to desert the country for greener pastures and Trump's doing a great job of discouraging talent from coming to the US.
Now, dunno how to tell you this, but the definition of sex isn't simple at the edges. Yes, the large majority of us can clearly be separated out as male or female, enough that the species hasn't gone extinct. But not all of us are so clearly definable and there is complexity as you'll discover should you ask a biologist. Where for example would you put hermaphrodites? They're rare edge cases but they exist and you can't simply ignore them. Well, perhaps you can but science doesn't.
As for the covid vaccine and global warming, you're simply ignorant, I regret to say.
The technology behind the covid vaccine is the greatest discovery in the history of vaccines.
The physics is quite clear regarding global warming and is something scientists in a wide variety of fields are finding.
Regarding the coverup of Genocide Joe's senility, the one place we agree, how do scientists get blamed for that?
You make a few valid points but I don't think you realize how much junk masquerades as "science". Part of the evidence for this is the tsunami of garbage drivel published in even "reputable" "peer reviewed" journals, let alone the pay-for-play comic books.
Or perhaps I do. Medicine ain't as simple as, say physics as we're not interchangeable as electrons. Hell, we're not even sure yet whether light alcohol consumption is good for you or not.
There are problems with drug companies, um, skewing the results of tests. If you're interested in that and problems with medicine, see Goldacre's "Bad Medicine" and "Bad Pharma". And there are problems in academia due to the need to publish to get research grants and tenure.
But no single study should be considered definitive (again, parts of physics accept such, especially when the tests are extremely expensive and done openly) and notice there are error correcting mechanisms within the scientific community that raise these issues. A relevant example here: not only was Wakefield's paper retracted but he lost his license to practice medicine.
And Barrett and Kavanaugh are intellectual giants? 😂
Please.
Barrett certainly is. Did you watch her performance at her confirmation hearings?
I don’t evaluate justices by their performances at confirmation hearings.
It's silly not to consider their performance at confirmation hearings as part of an overall assessment. It is one of the few public venues at which they (might) reveal aspects.of their judicial philosophy ... and be examined for suitability.
You could try reading their opinions. Confirmation hearings and purported “judicial philosophy” are BS, and have been since the Bork hearings 40 years ago.
Huh?? How does that make any sense? Bork's judicial philosophy had nothing to do with his failure to be confirmed?
𝗜𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝟯,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗳𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗱.
𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝟯𝟬𝟬 𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗮𝘄 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰.
𝗪𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗽𝗮𝘆 𝗱𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 (𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲)
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝘂𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗙𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀.𝗵𝘁𝘁𝗽𝘀://𝘄𝘄𝘄.𝗳𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿.𝗴𝗼𝘃/
Good comment Kathleen.
Tx! Reading the FR daily is what lawyers do. Most of us focus on Congress. News almost never covers the FR.
That's the most mind numbing website I've ever seen. Thank you? 😅
It is. Because I had to file the paper copies and retrieve them for so many lawyers I got interested. I thought at the time that knowing how to use the Federal Register was something we all have available but don't know about it so lawyers have developed expertise that looks superb but we could do it, too. About 100 times I have told myself...read the FR today and then I look and as you say so well-- "the most mind numbing website I've ever seen." BUT it's where all the deeds get done that rule so much of daily life.
I agree, it's important. Just joking a little, but I appreciate knowing that it's available. 😅
O it's a bear...but could be followed by reporters instead of more entertaining congress. I wish some would.
Ironic that KBJ is the one making the argument that we can’t have dumb people in positions of authority.
The fact that we are stuck with this moron in a lifetime appointment in itself refutes her argument that the country needs “credentialed experts” in unremovable positions ruling over the people.
I'm surprised Sauer didn't point that out. I was waiting for him to retort exactly that.
I would not be surprised if the thought came to him but he deferred out of prudence.
While delicious -- and arguably true -- it might gin up opposition to his arguments, fair or not as that may be.
There are no limits the Democrats will not cross to demonstrate their hypocrisy.
Yes! The Senate Democrats voted for KBJ and the activist Judges that make rulings based on " because I said so
"not on Constitutional Laws"
True..For the first time, I am actually a little afraid..
Well, she did say that she required an expert (i.e., a biologist) to explain to her what a woman is. So at least she is consistent in her need for others' expertise.
The most amusing part of that was that by saying she needed to be a biologist to know what a woman was, she was implicitly acknowledging that gender is a matter of biology and not psychology, which is exactly what she was trying to avoid saying. This woman is an utter retard.
YES!!!!!
That was a hoot!
"the Constitution does not say that Congress cannot create an independent agency."
That's not how the Constitution works! It's an enumeration of what powers the federal government has, and if it doesn't explicitly say that Congress (or any other part of the government) *can* do something, then that body cannot do the thing. Otherwise the power is reserved to the states or to the people, per the 10th amendment. It is really disheartening to me that we have a sitting Supreme Court justice who seems willing to ignore this foundational fact about how our government is structured.
A Supreme Court Justice who doesn’t understand the 10th Amendment! Bizarre.
DEI.
Too difficult for her to understand or determine. After all she’s not a Signer of The Constitution.
And we're all bigots for expecting her to have read any of the Amendments to the Constitution other than the 4th through the 8th.
She’s not a white male landowner?
Just wait
How do we know? We’re not experts or biologists.
I wonder how people procreate who are not biologists ... How about cats and dogs? Chickens?
1000 likes for your comment!
Lol
I can only hope that the current trend to rein in the powers, of the many Federal agencies, departments and commissions, continues. Congress has long abdicated it's responsibility for oversight of these monstrous bureaucracies. They like the fact that it enables them to have their cake and eat it too. They can still receive their quid pro quo campaign donations, while retaining the ability to appear appalled and "against" regulations that might change votes.
Congress should be required to debate and vote on every single regulation the agencies have issued and enforced as law. That should keep the rascals busy for the next decade.
For sure. On top of that - consider that statement on its own terms. I think a charitable assessment would put it on the level of a first-year law student.
Imagine that you're arguing in front of the Supreme Court and you hear that from one of the justices you know is going to vote against you. And then she just stares at you like it's some big mic drop. The more you think about it, the greater the disheartenment, lol.
Charitable, absolutely. I escaped law school from a lowly land grant place on the Great Plains in 1979. I remember the debate at that time on the developing power and sweep of regulatory agencies’ authority. When I read the comments of this Sup Crt Justice I was appalled, but not surprised. What is she — Harvard, Yale, Princeton? What questions do they ask on East Coast bar exams? What’s your favorite latte’? Quite something.
She isn’t just willing to ignore — she flat out disagrees with the concept (IF she even understands it).
'"the Constitution does not say that Congress cannot create an independent agency."
'That's not how the Constitution works! It's an enumeration of what powers the federal government has, and if it doesn't explicitly say that Congress (or any other part of the government) *can* do something, then that body cannot do the thing'
Yes, even I knew that. Kind of shocking that a Supreme Court justice doesn't.
Like AOC, who said that the Constitution doesn't say you can own a gun.
If you can find an audio version of this, I'd like to see it. No AOC fan here, but it seems that there is nothing supporting this quote. She definitely wants to regulate and restrict gun ownership, though.
Too bad we don’t listen to Brutus about what the Supreme Court would become.
Brutus predicted all the corruption we see today: https://open.substack.com/pub/lizlasorte/p/brutus-was-right-about-everything?r=76q58&utm_medium=ios
There is a name for government by experts--it's called fascism, and both Wilson and FDR were basically fascist in their outlook...FDR openly admired Mussolini until it became politically inconvenient. I am always amazed that America has, more or less, managed to push these self-admiring tyrants back for so long. Thank God for the 1st and 2nd Amendment...otherwise they would rule us even more than they do.
Yes. Exactly.
In fact, the response to both 9/11 and COVID showed how partisan, biased and agenda-driven "experts" can be. And with categorically devastating results.
It sure seems that a large percentage of "revolutionaries" are rich kids who think they know better than everyone else. Which then gives them open license to do what they "need" to do as the "sacrifices of today are for the gains of tomorrow". (Admittedly, I just made up that last line :-)
By way of example, Friedrich Engels was a rich kid, Mao was a rich kid, Bill Ayers was a rich kid, etc.
I think Mao was more middle class originally. When he gained power he became very wealthy.
I'm not claiming any expertise but I've read in several places that his father was a (comparatively) wealthy farmer who eventually cut Mao loose when it looked like he had become a "professional student":
Hilariously (not?) the Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong
...starts with: "Born to a peasant family in Shaoshan, Hunan, Mao studied in Changsha and was influenced by the 1911 Revolution and ideas of Chinese nationalism and anti-imperialism."
...but then later adds: "His father, Mao Yichang, was a formerly impoverished peasant who had become one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshan. Growing up in rural Hunan, Mao described his father as a stern disciplinarian, who would beat him and his three siblings, the boys Zemin and Zetan, as well as an adopted sister/cousin, Zejian."
...and: "His father saw no use in his son's intellectual pursuits, cut off his allowance and forced him to move into a hostel for the destitute."
One has to be very careful reading Wikipedia.
Absolutely! But in this case, a situation where propaganda might have value, they gave an answer which wasn't entirely "propaganda friendly".
So, (game theoretically? bayesian? side-channel info?) that makes me think it's more likely to be true!
And I had read something similar elsewhere. And the "rich kid revolutionary" does seem to be a bit of an archetype.
Almost a cliche ...
Matt Taibbi was a rich kid.
IMO, anything ending with "ism" generally is a pejorative rather than descriptive.
I think "autocratic" is a better descriptor.
Not to disagree with your comment.
Capitalism? Idealism?
Capitalism is clearly a pejorative to the likes of Bernie Sanders; Mandami, the astounding number that vote for both. Ask for a definition. If you don't get a coherent answer, it is a pejorative.
A pejorative is exactly what is called for, in many instances. They are quite overused in today's sound bite/click bait media however. They are not nearly as disparaging now days, thanks to over saturation. Being called Hitler is even losing gravitas.
Maybe the Hitler pejorative should be modernized to a Netanyahu pejorative?
Add (particularly in this context) "ist" and the other favorite: "ic".
But per your note, the expressed sentiment is right on the money.
"There is a name for government by experts--it's called fascism".
It's also known as nobility/feudalism and tyranny. I mean, who new what was best for the serfs than the nobles?
Also theocracy.
Hmm if only there were an example of "experts" outsourcing viral research to China to avoid US regulations resulting in a worldwide pandemic killing millions, costing trillions and doing untold mental health damage? Maybe that would make people think twice about the superiority of the expert class? Nah!!
Who retired with the fattest pension ever in the US Government, along with a bunch of patents that presumably have even more value.
Wasn't it some Mengele wannabe?
well both were "experts"
Yes they knew how to kill and call it science.
Anthony Fauci, of course.
Or confabulating fake studies on the climate for personal gain
Maybe an example where the US government experts were so conceited and overconfident that they didn't bother to see if any other countries were doing it differently or even... gasp! better
https://reason.com/2023/08/29/study-swedens-laissez-faire-pandemic-policies-paid-off/
"Justice" Ketanji Brown Jackson believes The First Ammendment was created to protect the government FROM the people and unimpeachable "experts" can be appointed by bribable representatives who should be impeached to rule in the interests of the people they openly despise. Also, she can't tell you what a woman is.
At least she inadvertently makes the strongest case yet for repealing all DEI/Affirmative Action laws and policies.
She and Tim Kaine (without the government there would be no free speech) must have been in the same non-Constitutional Law class.
It's frightening how far up the ladder these "checkmarked" cretins manage to climb, and even more so the people who continue to support them regardless of the nonsense they spew or disastrous decisions they make.
This is Wilsonian administrative theory spoken out loud — not a gaffe.
Independence here doesn’t mean from corruption; it means from elections.
That’s the unresolved conflict: constitutional accountability vs. expert moral authority.
If the court is overturning Humphrey’s Executor which protects an “independent, nonpartisan body of experts, charged with duties neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”
How does this fit: “Justices called the bluff by offering a carve-out, saying the Fed is a ‘uniquely structured, quasi-private entity” that wouldn’t come into play”. I’m having trouble seeing any difference in these descriptions, so not much of a carve out. So can we please get rid of the Fed?
I'd also like to know exactly who these unicorn, nonpartisan experts are. I somehow doubt they exist, especially in the swamp.
That skepticism is warranted — and it’s exactly why the doctrine depends less on who the experts are and more on how tightly constrained their authority is supposed to be.
Humphrey’s Executor never assumed angels; it assumed narrow delegation, clear statutory limits, transparency, and judicial review as the safeguards against capture. The legitimacy wasn’t “they’re neutral,” it was “they’re boxed in.”
The problem today isn’t that experts have opinions — it’s that the boxes have dissolved. When delegation becomes open-ended, standards become discretionary, and review becomes deferential, “expertise” quietly turns into policy-making without electoral accountability.
At that point, whether the experts are unicorns or swamp creatures stops mattering — the structure has already failed.
It should also be noted that at the time of the Humphrey Executor decision (1935), it's doubtful the Court envisioned Congress creating the large number of agencies, and their associated regulations, to avoid direct responsibility and lessen their exposure to the retribution of less than happy voters. This, of course, led to career politicians by enabling enrichment from donor class (to look the other way) while simultaneously voicing voter friendly rhetoric.
That’s an important historical clarification, and I think you’re right.
Humphrey’s Executor assumed a far more modest administrative state — one where delegation was the exception, not the governing norm. The Court was imagining bounded agencies operating in narrow lanes, not an ecosystem of rule-making bodies capable of displacing political accountability at scale.
The risk you describe — diffusion of responsibility as a political strategy — is exactly why structural limits matter more than presumed good faith. Once delegation becomes a shield rather than a tool, voter accountability erodes regardless of intent.
At that point, the question isn’t whether experts are sincere, but whether the system still preserves a traceable line between power and consent.
Yes, and to build on that I just read a note saluting a recently deceased playwright that could apply to the 'actors' in the scenarios you describe: "It is, of course, ironic that the most intelligent and intellectual of playwrights should have lived during a period where humanity managed to dumb itself to an unimaginative degree via technology. A horror called Instagram has birthed a far greater horror called an influencer. The latter peddles a lifestyle to those with an IQ of single numbers. Once upon a time, very stupid people were tolerated and even helped by the state in order to survive the hurdles of life. Now the stigma of stupidity has been overturned, and the loudest and stupidest of the lot have prevailed. The least informed voices are the loudest, forcing the rest of us to learn to speak their language."
Good question — and you’re right to notice the surface similarity. The difference isn’t semantic; it’s structural.
Humphrey’s Executor rests on the claim that certain agencies exercise limited, specified authority within a statutory framework and are insulated to prevent partisan capture. The theory assumes narrow delegation + judicially reviewable standards.
What’s being challenged now isn’t the existence of expertise per se, but the scale and autonomy of modern administrative power — where agencies both interpret law and enforce it, often with minimal electoral or congressional correction.
The Fed carve-out reflects this tension. It’s treated as exceptional not because it fits the Humphrey’s model cleanly, but because monetary policy has been historically walled off as a macro-stability function with indirect democratic inputs (appointments, reporting, statutory mandates).
That doesn’t mean the carve-out is conceptually neat — just that the Court is signaling discomfort with generalized expert governance while avoiding immediate systemic shock.
In short: the contradiction you’re pointing to is real — it’s the unresolved legacy of Wilsonian administration colliding with constitutional accountability limits.
I appreciate your thoughtful response.
It all still seems like a lot of hand wavering that fails to adequately distinguish between “quasi-governmental” agencies. The Fed gets a pass but the rest do not, which is a policy decision not a constitutional decision. We’ve seen everywhere in the ostensibly democratic west this phenomenon of outsourcing governmental operations to avoid accountability and transparency. It was done in the Twitter files by outsourcing censorship to academia and NGOs. It’s done by the Five Eyes nations to evade Fourth Amendment constraints. In the UK they have a multitude of quasi governmental entities called Quangos (quasi governmental NGOs) that are similarly unaccountable.
None of this is compatible with a democracy or a constitutional republic. And in the US the Fed exercises vast powers that are completely entwined with the federal government and exerts a massive influence on our individual daily lives.
You’re not wrong to press on this — and I want to be clear about where I agree with you.
I’m not claiming there’s a clean constitutional principle that neatly distinguishes the Fed from other quasi-governmental bodies. There isn’t. The Fed carve-out is best understood as a containment decision, not a fully theorized justification. It reflects the Court’s reluctance to trigger immediate systemic disruption in monetary governance, not a belief that the Fed sits comfortably within Humphrey’s Executor as a matter of first principles.
That’s the key distinction I’m trying to draw: constitutional doctrine here is operating in a damage-control mode, not resolving the underlying legitimacy problem you’re pointing to.
Where I would push back slightly is this: recognizing that tension doesn’t commit us to saying “all such entities are constitutionally identical,” only that the existing framework has reached its explanatory limits. At that point, courts can signal discomfort, narrow delegations, and claw back authority incrementally — but they can’t, on their own, supply a replacement model of democratic accountability.
So yes — the outsourcing problem you describe is real, widespread, and corrosive. My claim isn’t that the Fed disproves it, but that the Fed shows how far the system has drifted beyond what constitutional doctrine can cleanly reconcile.
At that point, the question stops being purely legal and becomes political: what forms of expertise, if any, can coexist with democratic control without hollowing it out? The law can expose the fracture, but it can’t finish the argument.
Agree.
IMO, the Fed is "Exhibit A".
I think that carve out is simply an example of the cowardice of the Supreme Court. Nine unelected bureaucrats in black robes.
“They can’t be allowed to put people like RFK in charge of science.” And yet voters not identifying as dumb or deplorable were perfectly content to have clueless Joe Biden in the White House starring in a four year long run of The Emperors New Clothes , his mental and physical infirmities on full display for all the world to see…also worth mentioning that these same folks also are advocating for 16 year olds to vote, as if they are qualified ….
The idea that "someone" is "in charge of science" boggles the mind.
Well, according to Dr. Fauci……🤦♀️
Somebody has to do it or else science might misbehave and become unsettled.
It didn’t start with Biden. I first thought of the Emperor’s New Clothes when Obama ran for Senator and then President. He had never accomplished anything. Not a fan of Hillary Clinton but at least she had some accomplishments.
Leaving dead Americans in Benghazi? Destroying evidence? Blowing Bill?
Wait… I seriously doubt that Hillary has ever “blown” anyone…. 😝😝😝
Bad visual. Let's move on. :)
Not Bill at least
Maybe a professor back in the day
In Law School.
Maybe Webb Hubbell? James Comey? Barry Hussein? (Nah, probably not. I don't think she identified as a "bath house boy".)
I don't think Bill allows her to do that. He has others service him. He knows she bites ...
It’s one of those children’s tales that when you “ get it” , it stays with you.
I'm still not prepared to say that election was legitimate. But I can't argue with the fact that "We the People" truly elect some very stupid people. They were on display in the Homeland Security committee meeting!!!
But ... but ... They're all experts!! Tik-Tok. Tik-Tok.
I just LOVE that people like Jackson ASSUME that all Trump voters are uneducated rubes.
I voted for Trump all three times. I am a 61 yr old white female. I buck all the trends. I have 3 degrees. One a doctorate of Veterinary Medicine. I SHOULD by all the trends, be a raging liberal....a veritable AWFL. But I am not.
I am not a far right person either. I am middle of the road and so considered a radical by people like Jackson. Because I don't believe in social fairy tales like the left does, I cannot be trusted to understand financial principles(I own a business, my fourth in my career). I am a property owner that understands taxes all too well.
Because I believe people should be responsible for their own destiny.....except for temporary, extreme cases.....then my expertise is no longer valid because I won't support their idiot causes.
I don't necessarily want an ALL powerful President, but at LEAST he can be voted out every 4 years. These perpetual experts like Fauci are free to screw over people forever.
Even worse she presumes that Trump will nominate morons as replacements… unlike Biden nominees. lol
Well said. Now if you'll just confirm that you were writing this while wearing a maroon "Gig'em" sweatshirt during the process, my faith will be restored.
Clearly, one doesn’t have to pass a test to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. Any idiot will do. Thanks again, Biden.
She's NOT "any" idiot. She's a special kind of stupid
Who put this retard out in public without her dunce cap? You can tell she's a Biden nominee. Cut from the same cognitive challenges.
Republicans also voted to confirm her, which tells you all you need to know.
Only 2. The usual ones…
Which is what, Lee? That politicians are likely to vote their interests, not ours. When an a big envelope is filled with $100 bills to be picked up weekly in some remote area, off the beaten path of D.C. every Friday that is their interest. Republicans are paid to look away.
Bob menendez gold bars aren't as pocketable as you might think.
I guess you need to give ole Bob some credit, he was smart enough to ask for gold instead of inflated fiat money. That’s the mark of an expert crook.
Yes, but in his closet?
behind all the skeletons.
Both parties are full of criminals that don't give a damn about you, the Constitution or the USA. Mass assassinations should be the order of the day for these people.
And idiots. Mostly both
Yes they are and that’s a shame. Something to do with their “values.”
You mean RINOs
So many of the evils, problems and flashpoints of the 20th, and now 21st, Centuries can be traced back to Woodrow Wilson. It's breathtaking - despite his egotistic hubris, racism, opposition to equal rights, misogyny... breathtaking.
So - who validates the expertise of the independent expert agencies? Who corrects them when the experts are wrong, as they frequently are? This drum needs to be beaten constantly.
Agree. Wilson was our first socialist president, and he did a lot of damage.
The issue of whether government agencies need to be run by specialized Ph.D.'s arises only because federal government power since Wilson's time has grown to the point of micromanaging more and more aspects of American life, from the economy to medicine to the environment.
I'm with the President on the narrow question of whether he has the right to fire Executive agency heads. But the long-term solution to the problem is to scale back the power of government to control our lives to the point that narrow, specialized expertise is not needed to implement federal law.
What a shame that during KBJ's confirmation hearing this follow up question wasn't asked:
"I understand you are not a biologist, but are you a woman? Is your husand a man?" We could have instantly assessed her expert status as qualification for the Court.
Great piece Matt, written with your typical insight and humor!
I was screaming exactly that to the TV. So disappointing that no one followed up.
No husband. It was just chance whom she hooked with.